


Playdate

by Hibibun



Category: Persona 3
Genre: Allusions to Parental Death, Depression, Existential Dread, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-16 20:53:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18698947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hibibun/pseuds/Hibibun
Summary: Minato had only planned on walking home and taking a nap, but as usual Ryoji has to complicate things in such a way that he finds himself unable to complain. Ryoji comes to visit and Minato gives up on trying to sleep.





	Playdate

**Author's Note:**

> this was a prompt i received... gosh over a year ago? i don't even remember what the exact prompt was i only just recently remembered who sent it and i knew what the pairing was so uh. here it is anyway!

There was no delicate way of explaining why Ryoji coming home with him was a bad idea. Mitsuru had explained that outsiders who weren’t aware of the existence of shadows and the true nature of S.E.E.S.’s operation weren’t really allowed over, though no one had expected a person like Minato to bring someone else home.

It was one of the few days Minato himself didn’t feel like he had to rush around working this job or participating in that after school club. He had more or less implied he wanted to go home and sleep, but as usual Ryoji insisted he had already gotten enough sleep in class.

So in true Ryoji fashion, the teen followed him home anyway insisting that he wanted to see his room. Seeing as the majority of the people who lived at the dorm had other extra-curricular activities that needed taking care of—thankfully including Aigis who had surprisingly gone somewhere with Yukari and Fuuka after school—there was hardly anyone else home. Mitsuru herself had been beyond busy and likely didn’t have the energy or time to scold him properly if she knew. The only other person was Ken and Koromaru, one of which was smart enough not to blab about the dark hour to strangers and the other who could only be understood by his mechanical friend.

Interestingly, Koromaru didn’t give the same hostile reaction Aigis did upon seeing Ryoji and merely perked up an ear when they entered. With a brief scratching of the dog’s ear, Minato didn’t linger downstairs, fully intending on taking his nap whether Ryoji was there or not. He certainly hadn’t invited him over and if the other got bored and left that was his problem.

He just barely had the energy left to climb the flights to his room while paying half a mind to Ryoji who was rambling on about something that happened during the lecture he’d been sleeping through. The second they reach his room, Minato does little else than drop his bag and slip out of his shoes before face first falling into bed.

“It’s strange how you’re still this sleepy despite sleeping through most of class. I don’t know how you get away with it honestly,” Ryoji laughs as he takes a moment to similarly slip out of his own shoes and leave his bag near where Minato haphazardly dropped his.

Of course the other teen doesn’t even bother answering while Ryoji takes it upon himself to start glancing about the dorm and noting how mostly empty it is. The only point of interest he ends up finding is a lone laptop on the desk.

When Minato stops hearing movement on Ryoji’s part, it’s obvious he needs to see what’s happening and the fact he’s gotten comfortable makes it even more irritating that he needs to flop over.

“Hmm… not that one,” Ryoji mutters to himself and Minato’s frustrated he can’t see what the other’s doing still as his back is obscuring his view, but he has a pretty good guess.

“Not that eith—” Ryoji starts again, before being interrupted.

“What are you doing?” Minato asks, finally bringing himself to sit up in bed, though he hasn’t actually gotten up.

Ryoji’s quiet for a moment, save for the sound of some more typing, before joyously turning back, “I guessed it on the third try; not bad, huh?”

Minato makes it clear by his expression he’s not impressed and without needing to ask Ryoji as usual picks up on what it is he wants to say.

“Well, I know you said you were gonna’ nap, but that’s kinda’ boring and I’ve never been in here before so…” Ryoji starts to explain while clicking through folders.

“Jeez Minato, do you do anything on this thing? All I can find is your music folder and… is that an MMO? You never told me you played this! We could play together.”

It’s at that Minato figures his attention and input isn’t needed and he can maybe get some sleep. Considering how dead that MMO was the few times he popped on, if Ryoji could even find it somewhere he’d surely get bored after a point with only two other people to play. That of course was even with the assumption that Minato would feel up to it, though the student doesn’t deny as much as he wants to that the thought momentarily passed through his head.

Playing things with Ryoji was a pain though because while it was satisfying the times they managed to have good synchronization; more often than not the other was too animated and didn’t listen.

“You’d get bored quick,” he supplies, not bothering to elaborate on why.

“Mm, I don’t know, though I do suppose I don’t have a computer…”

Minato doesn’t respond with anything else though the comment draws his thoughts back on a subject that had come up the other day. There wasn’t much Ryoji refused to talk about, but just once he’d dodged a question regarding his home and home life that had left Minato irritatingly curious. He didn’t want to care about things like that since this friendship had been forced on him to begin with and he wasn’t exactly… comfortable with some aspects of calling it that with recent events in mind. Ryoji was a classmate that just so happened to push his presence on him in a way that felt friend-like.

So why couldn’t he stop wondering about mundane things like that? Was he so eager to know about the other because he cared about him like a friend or was he just eager to find something else that maybe Ryoji would understand about him that no one else seemed capable of? The first option scared him and the second just made him hate himself more.

He’s pulled from his thoughts by the person in question suddenly sitting at the edge of his bed, and for a moment he feels the air rush out of his lungs because the teen in front of him looks too similar to the boy who he doesn’t think he’ll see ever again.

“I thought you were going to go to sleep?” Ryoji says, an easygoing smile on his face hiding the fact he knows more than he’s saying. Minato’s too scared to ask what that smile actually means.

Ignoring him, he flops back down knowing he won’t be able to sleep. Wordlessly, Ryoji reaches for his wrist, fingers gently moving instead for his hand.

“How about we just talk,” he says, though his tone says it isn’t a question. Minato has no intentions of speaking, but as usual, he’s strung along no matter what he says he will or won’t do when it comes to Ryoji.

The conversation is meaningless on the surface, but a month later it only stings all the more when there are just the ghosts of two faces—that are really just one in the same—looking down at him as he stares out the window unable to sleep. He knows exactly why those questions were never answered and it's simply because there was never any answer to begin with. Somehow, he still feels stupid for not figuring it out sooner.

A large yellow moon stares back at him and he’s never felt so tired.


End file.
